The Journey to Forgivenss

Healing after trauma includes many steps and stages. One of the most important is the need to forgive when the time comes that such an act is not only feasible but necessary. Towards that end, I am working on a new book, The Forgiveness Prescription.

The book is based on three major assumptions:

• Not forgiving impedes healing and contributes to the suffering of chronic disease and pain.
• Forgiveness is always possible but seldom happens overnight.
• Forgiveness is a trainable skill.

The book will give the reader seven keys to forgiveness. These include:

1. Become Awake and Aware
2. Learn to Reframe
3. Practice Gratitude
4. Harness Your Anger
5. Live the Golden Rule
6. Engage in Lovingkindness
7. Live in the Here and Now

You can help. Please contribute your thoughts and stories in the comment section of this blog OR if you prefer, just email me with your contribution at: DrTspeaks@gmail.com.

WellWriting for Your Health

by

Ellen Taliaferro, MD, FACEP

WellWriting is a form of expressive writing used to promote wellness and self-improvement after past stress and trauma. Writing as a health tool goes by several names:

• Journaling
• Expressive writing
• Therapeutic writing
• Emotive writing

Research by psychologist James Pennebaker from the University of Texas in Austin and others in the healthcare field has proven that such writing is a therapeutic tool. Their research reveals the positive effects of writing to discharge negative and harmful emotions associated with past trauma.

Improvement of various physical and mental conditions has been reported in several patient populations through the use of control studies. To date improvement has been shown for asthma, arthritis, chronic pain syndromes and chronic fatigue syndrome, just to name a few.

Does expressive writing work? In the summer 2004 issue of Clinical Psychology: Science & Practice, notes that expressive writing has in general produced good results, but the real puzzle is why does it work and how?1 To date, there has not been a single theory produced to explain why it works. This may be, in part, because expressive writing affects those who engage in it on many different levels: mentally, emotionally, physically and socially.

Still, we know some things about journaling or expressive writing. Such writing leads to self-disclosure that helps you identify your problems and recognize their emotional impact on you.

Experiences that cause you trauma can lead you to have intricate and distressful feelings. To complicate matters, others who underwent the same trauma at the same time may be impacted entirely differently. What a mystery that some are affected one way while others go free of lingering emotion.

Ellen Taliaferro, MD, FACEP is an

Which Doctor Do You Want?

By

DrT

Decision anxiety sweeps the country now as daily news focuses on health care reform. Concerns focus on costs, access to screening exams, and how to best handle “end of life” health care. Clinician experience receives no attention at all in the somewhat heated current debates. Perhaps it should although there would be some interested parties. For instance, Sir William Osler, one of the greatest medical teachers ever, advised, “The young physician starts life with 20 drugs for each disease, and the old physician ends life with one drug for 20 diseases.” Dr. Osler underscored this bad news for the pharmaceutical companies by further advising, “One of the first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to take medicine.”

Now comes an interesting article sent out by MedScape Blogs from WebMD to clinician subscribers. “Who’s your doc?” asks the article. The seasoned, experienced physician who seldom reads and stays current with the latest medical trends due to his or her busy schedule? Or would you rather have the young fresh medical graduate with little clinical experience but a mind full of all the latest trends and treatments supported by research articles galore?

The author of the article offers no advice as to his own preference. Instead, a short poll accompanies the article.  The poll consists of only three choices:

• I would choose an old, experienced doctor
• I would choose a fresh, well-learned grad
• I am undecided as to which doctor I would choose

What would you do? You can take the same poll by answering the question on the right-hand side of this blog. If you take the poll and then want to know what the doctors reading this post chose, just click here to email DrT for the physicians’ poll results.

Got Back Pain? Try Acupuncture

by

Ellen Taliaferro, MD

A recent study, published in the May 2009 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine reveals that acupuncture as a treatment of chronic back pain works better than standard medical treatments alone. The chronic back pain patients, all 638 of them, were placed in different treatment groups:

• Standard acupuncture
• Individualized acupuncture
• “Sham” or fake acupuncture
• Standard medical treatment without acupuncture

The patients placed in the acupuncture groups received ten treatments by experienced acupuncturists over a period of seven weeks. At 8 weeks, all of the acupunture patients, regardless of which type of acupuncture (including the sham treatments) showed greater improvement than the patients treated with only standard treatment.

The article abstract concludes, “Although aupuncture was found effective for chronic low back pain, tailoring needling sites to each patient and penetration of the skin appear to be unimportant in eliciting therapeutic benefits.”

Click here to get a copy of the article abstract on pub med. To read more about this study, click here to read an article about this study.

Which Diets Work Best?

The question of which diet works best can generate some heated opinions. At the same time, diets discourage dieters who have bounced from diet to diet without really losing weight or losing weight only to watch the scales creep up and then some.

From time to time, medical research “weighs in.” To see one of the latest diet research published papers, click here.

New Category: Lose Weight

Obesity and hypertension go hand and hand in the land of chronic disease which now accounts for:

• 81% of hospital admissions
• 91% of all prescriptions filled
• 76% of all physician visits

In medicine, hypertension is often treated with medication that can be done away with if the patient can lose weight. Losing weight is not small problem. In fact, nearly 65% of American are considered to be either overweight or obese.”

Towards that end, a new category is being added to this blog: “fat and weight.” You can determine if obesity or being overweight is a problem that you have by using the calculator located in the column to the right of this post.

If losing weight is the prescription as well as the challenge, what is the answer on how to best do it. I have recently signed on to the Jon Gabriel program (The Gabriel Method: The Revolutionary DIET-FREE Way to Totally Transform Your Body) as well as the Paul Mckenna program (I Can Make You Thin.) Both of these programs focus on not dieting but rather managing your eating, emotional health, physical activity.

It is quite to early for me to report any results of my own journey. I do know that low carbing worked well for me for one year. Then slowly, like many others who have lost weight with this program, I found that my weight began to return. When it was all over, I ended up gaining even five pounds more.

If you are struggling with weight issues and want to contribute your own thoughts, please post a comment to this blog post.

A New Concept: Patient Self Management

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 90 million Americans now live with chronic diseases. These chronic diseases such as diabetes and arthritis result in a decreased quality of life, limited activity, and extended pain and suffering.

When you suffer with a chronic healthcare problem, you deal with many factors that compose that problem. Some of these factors overlap, augment each other, or oppose each other.  And each factor may call for its own physician or treatment. If you want to succeed in your quest for wellness, the first thing you must do is drop out of the “I just do what my doctor tells me” school.

Join your healthcare team. Indeed, take over:

Any why not? You have the disease, not your doctor.

Growing evidence supports your role as a collaborative team member and captain. Remember, about 90 percent of what’s needed to help you improve comes directly from you, the person with the chronic health disorder.

When you become a team caption on your healthcare team, your care will improve as well as your satisfaction as a patient.

To learn more about the growing area of “patient self management,” check out the Stanford programs on self management by clicking here.